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sleep meditation Stress Management Strategies For Peak Performers

Stress can deteriorate your health faster than any disease. Many people suffer physically when they’re dealing with chronic psychological stress. Since stress can affect you physically,mentally and emotionally, we can say that you won’t be safe until you get your problems under control with the proper stress management techniques.

Stress is defined as a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that demands exceed the ability to perform. Thus, stress is put in a negative light and its positive effects ignored. However, stress can be helpful and good when it motivates people to accomplish more.

Monitor Your Stress Threshold

In most cases, stress usually starts mentally rather than physically. Since both are linked and work in tandem of your existence, we can say that the more affected you are with your problems, the more negative effect you will feel on your body. To deal with this, you need to be in tune with your own body when enduring common stressors of modern life. Fatigue, recurrent infections, trouble sleeping (insomnia), and irritability are some of the signs that your body is reaching its limit in coping with your stress.

Common Signs & Symptoms of Stress Include

Frequent headaches, jaw clenching or pain

Gritting, grinding teeth

Neck ache, back pain, muscle spasms

Light headedness, faintness, dizziness

Frequent colds, infections, herpes sores

Unexplained or frequent “allergy” attacks

Difficulty breathing, sighing

Chest pain, palpitations

Poor sexual desire or performance

Excess anxiety, worry, guilt, nervousness

Increased anger, frustration, hostility

Effects of Stress

If you let your stress go unchecked it can lead to heart disease, central obesity, high blood pressure, depression, anxiety disorders–even cancer.

Stress Management Strategies

There are plenty of techniques that can help with stress and reduce the effect on your health. Breathing exercises can help regulate your oxygen intake and will help you relax. Others include regular exercise, prayer, meditation, biofeedback, brainwave entrainment, and intelligent dietary habits. Brainwave entrainment technology combines music with various brainwaves that help you fall asleep, meditate, stay calm under pressure, focus or any desired mental state.

You could take sleeping pills or anti-depressant medicines to help you along – these are addictive though. Did I mention that most prescription medicines have many dangerous side effects, just listen to all of the fine print at the end of TV commercials. You’re better off with natural products such as Valerian Root or St John’s Wort.

Hlelpful links. National Institute of Mental Health [http://www.nimh.nih.gov/]
Listening to music while you are meditating – not a good idea. … Anything you do with the thought that you are meditating is meditating. There are many ways to meditate. Personally, I find music to be distracting, but paying attention to sounds in your environment is part of insight meditation.

Types of meditation
Loving-kindness meditation. With the many types of meditation to try, there should be one to suit most individuals. …
Body scan or progressive relaxation. …
Mindfulness meditation. …
Breath awareness meditation. …
Kundalini yoga. …
Zen meditation. …
Transcendental Meditation.

Meditation is a habitual process of training your mind to focus and redirect your thoughts. You can use it to increase awareness of yourself and your surroundings. Many people think of it as a way to reduce stress and develop concentration.
Basic meditation music simply provides a way for an individual to go deeper with their meditation by adding a new layer to their experience. … Unlike many other music forms, the binaural beats work with the brain to develop a frequency most associated with relaxation.

meditation music Top 10 Holiday Gifts for the Spiritually Aware Person

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Gifts are usually included in those celebrations. Most of my close friends are spiritually aware or devoted to self improvement. I could get away with buying them earrings and sweaters, but I’d rather use this opportunity to support and encourage their self development.

Here are the Top 10 Holiday Gifts I’ve found that would please any spiritually aware person – with a range of prices from inexpensive to posh, from day-to-day to once-in-a-lifetime.

Inspirational Calendar. There’s a great choice of calendars for spiritual people. From Zen messages to Biblical phrases; from doorways to spirals; from the Sacred places around the world to the marvels of Mother Nature, there’s a calendar for every taste and interest. For the Wiccan, Pagan, or nature-lover on your list, choose a lunar calendar or a solar calendar that includes phases of the moon.
Symbolic Jewelry. Rings, necklaces, bracelets and earrings come in a myriad of spiritually significant designs. Choose a particular tradition or a worldwide mystical motif that represents self improvement.
Motivational books, eBooks, and Magazine Subscriptions. Remember paper magazines? Books where you can touch the pages and turn them? Many people still enjoy reading away from the computer. For others, an eBook version of The Law of Attraction, A Course in Miracles, a translation of the Talmud or Buddha’s teachings, or any of thousands of titles of self development and spiritual topics are available.
Self Improvement Courses. If you know your friend is ready to take their next step in spiritual growth and you’re aware of the direction they want to travel, why not gift them with an eCourse? Be sure you’re choosing something reputable that isn’t just a come-on to “bigger, better, more costly” programs.
Spiritual Home Decor. A Hamsa hung on a wall or a mezuzah placed on the doorway demarcate your home as a special place – no matter what your religion is. Artwork and plaques with motivational and inspirational messages also make great holiday gifts. Or pick up a Lucky Bamboo for spiritual friends who also like house plants.
Heart Opening Music. Whether it’s the emotional ride of Sibelius or the spirit-evoking notes of a Native American flute, music opens the doors of the heart and soul. Choose a CD from a range as wide as meditation music to the foot-stomping celebration of ceremonial drums.
Crystals and Gemstones. You can find crystals and gemstones of any size, shape, color, and price both online and at local metaphysical shops. Don’t limit yourself to birth stone colors, either. There are colors related to the chakra your friend or family member is focused on and there are stones and crystals that zero in on a particular kind of growth energy. With a little research you can wrap up the perfect Earth-based gift.
Aromatic and Herbal Healing/Relaxing Products. Aromatic oils and herbal mixes are available straight up or added to everything from empowering pendants to dream-inducing pillowlike pouches. Choose something that will inspire and motivate or relax and heal. Stress-relieving bath oils are the perfect holiday present for friends who need to re-center after the winter holiday rush.
Experiential Gifts. If you’re sure they’re interested, why not sign up your friend for a past life regression session, shamanic class, or Reiki lesson? These are gifts they’ll remember forever.
Travel and Holiday Journeys. If you’re lucky enough to live in a place like Sedona, you can gift a friend with a local Vortex tour. However, if there’s nothing spiritually significant around the corner, sign your friend up for the journey of a lifetime. Tours of the sacred sites of Peru or Bali, Stonehenge in England, week-long cruises with spiritual teachers, and meditative retreats in unspoiled natural surroundings can all be packaged up with a timely gift card.

Before you purchase any of these top 10 holiday gifts, be sure the gift fits the person you’re giving it to, fits your budget, and fits the relationship you have with them on a spiritual energy level. Think about your friend or family member and where they are in their own spiritual journey. Help them stretch, but try not to underestimate or overestimate where they are at this point in their spiritual lives.

And by all means – don’t judge! If a simple crystal is all they need to move them a small step forward on their path, don’t worry that it’s not as “intense” as a journey to Machu Picchu. Whether or not you think they “should” be ready to study with a traditional shaman doesn’t matter. What matters is whether they’re ready at this time or not. Save the shamanic journey for them for next year.

While you’re searching these top 10 holiday gifts for inspirational presents, remember that it’s also okay to celebrate yourself!
Listening to music while you are meditating – not a good idea. … Anything you do with the thought that you are meditating is meditating. There are many ways to meditate. Personally, I find music to be distracting, but paying attention to sounds in your environment is part of insight meditation.

relaxing music Customer Service Training Camp – Day 3

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Meditation music is music performed to aid in the practice of meditation. It can have a specific religious content, but also more recently has been associated with modern composers who use meditation techniques in their process of composition, or who compose such music with no particular religious group as a focus.

theta music | meditation for kids
Balancing priorities, whether holiday season or not, is a very important skill you must cultivate if you do not already practice it. This bears great importance in your customer service department. Why? Because there have been and will be times where you are going to be overloaded with tasks and pressures in your daily business routines. Knowing how and when to prioritize customer service issues will allow you to seamlessly stay in control of your business during hectic times, especially around the holidays.

The following list will cover basic components of most businesses customer service departments.

1. Know where your money is. You should always keep a small emergency stash. It could be only a few hundred dollars, but you should have one set aside. Depending on what kind of business you are in and the amount of employees you have will determine the amount and reason for this stash of cash. If you are in retail, as I am, you need to be sure you are covering your customer service department fully.

Work days may become longer. Stress hits everyone in different ways. Try to keep morale up by doing simple things that will mean a lot to your staff. Some things I would suggest would be making sure employees get time for much needed breaks. Feed them. Order pizza or Chinese take-out. Give out good bonuses, not just any old thing will do. Remember, treating your employees correctly will give you huge benefits all year round. Slip $100 into their Christmas cards, treat them to a whole day at the salon, get creative, but be as generous as you can. Loyal employees are worth every bit of it. Also, they will be more enjoyable for customers, which is helping to protect your bottom line.

2. Give your customers more than just what they buy from you. Loyal customers will be delighted with an extra little something to go along with their purchase. It could be things like we do at Agiftabilitys. Say a customer we’ve had for a while, buys their home decor from us quite often. We not only give a discount, we also send windchimes or candles, at least one free item, that we think they would enjoy having. We get huge replies of thank yous. Once again, you are not only going above and beyond the call of duty, you are giving from your heart. The amount of money is not important, it’s that you chose to give them more than you had to. Customers remember that.

3. Finally, don’t forget to refuel you! Take time out each and everyday, no matter how hectic life and business gets, take at least a few minutes to be just you. For me, that’s time to meditate, pray, or just close my eyes and listen to good music. Whatever it is that helps you recharge and clear your mind of needless clutter will help, then you can get back out there and be whomever it is that is needed that moment.
Listening to music while you are meditating – not a good idea. … Anything you do with the thought that you are meditating is meditating. There are many ways to meditate. Personally, I find music to be distracting, but paying attention to sounds in your environment is part of insight meditation.

meditation music The Enigma of Meditation

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Meditation music is music performed to aid in the practice of meditation. It can have a specific religious content, but also more recently has been associated with modern composers who use meditation techniques in their process of composition, or who compose such music with no particular religious group as a focus.

meditation music free download | pyramid meditation
One of the most common ailments of a stressful modern life is anxiety and depression that comes as an aftereffect of the former. The symptoms of anxiety are one of the fastest growing problems of the urban life. It is however seen that not always are there a definite reason that leads to anxiety and depression. It is at times a development that comes from reasons within an individual.

Here are some of the possible reasons that lead to anxiety and depression.

Genetic History – Psychologists have found from research that at times when there is a case of depression in the family history of a person there is a chance of the same developing in another person of the same family later on. it may continue with its symptoms on a genetic basis.
Brain Conditions – The level of neurotransmitters in the brain of individuals are the force behind transmission of information. A misbalance in this can lead to different levels of signal leading to anxiety.
Other Conditions – There are additional and surrounding factors to which a person is subjected to or a sudden shock can lead to anxiety and depression. In these cases they are direct results of stress and strain.

There are various symptoms that a person may demonstrate as a result of anxiety and depression. Common among these is a state of sleeplessness and headache or even loss of short term memory. But the most common symptom is the lack of concentration that a person experiences during this phase of time. This could lead to a downward trend in one’s ability and performances in work and could cause further anxiety leading to greater depression. However there are certain ways like meditation to treat this problem and improve concentration and even cure sleep problems without much complication.

Meditation

The exercise of meditation is an integral and key part of the Yoga exercises that was part of ancient Indian culture. The ancient history of India will give you large number of examples of sages and hermits who practiced meditation to earn different and higher levels of knowledge. Meditation has been known as a cure for several ailments like sleep problems and improve concentration as well.

Medical practitioners use meditation as part of anxiety and depression treatment.

You have to sit in a yogic posture which is sitting down on a flat surface with legs folded and crossed.
You will place your hands in the middle where your legs are crossing and close your eyes.
Your back and spine should be straight and at no point slouch.
Now concentrate and allow the mind to meditate.

During this process you may take the help of meditation music to enhance your ability to concentrate. There is a variety of meditation music available for the purpose. You will be able to get a variety of meditation music CDs or even download free meditation music from internet music sources. Music is always known to act as a healer and will effectively help you in the process of meditation as it works to soothe the nerves and relieve you from all kinds of stress and strain.
Listening to music while you are meditating – not a good idea. … Anything you do with the thought that you are meditating is meditating. There are many ways to meditate. Personally, I find music to be distracting, but paying attention to sounds in your environment is part of insight meditation.

sleep meditation Ten Simple Steps to a More Affectionate Marriage

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Would you like to have a more satisfying, more gracious, more affectionate marriage? Of course, who wouldn’t? Here are ten simple steps to allowing that into your relationship with your spouse. Married couples are reluctant to share their feelings with each other, and it’s not just men holding back. Women, too, have a high threshold of trust, and in either case, couples are skeptical about opening up, believing that they don’t need it, or that their comfort level has been attained, and they don’t want to be bothered.

But here are ten steps for increasing the level of satisfaction in your marriage. Pick and choose as you wish. The first thing you’ll notice is that some of the steps are so simple as to be almost silly. Anything memorable is what people take away.

1) Be nice to each other. Simple enough? With all the disruption, uncertainty and busyness today it’s far too easy to bring outside stuff into the home. We find ourselves easily annoyed, irritable, wanting nothing more than to be left alone. One thing to remember is that everything is a choice. Next time you come in the house, make a conscious effort to imagine your spouse the day you married them. Shut your eyes, go back five, ten, twenty years before, and picture them with you as you recited your vows together. Could you be angry or upset with them that day? No? See, it is a choice. Okay, open your eyes, smile, greet your mate as if you’d just said “I Do.”

2) Simplicity. See above. The world is crazy busy. It’s too easy to get wrapped up in all the electronic, urban, job and urgent detail cacophony. The computer. Television. Radio, Wii, DVD, NetFlix, YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, you name it, it’s a time suck, and a major source of distraction. Have you considered a meditation spot, or a serenity room? They’re the perfect antidote to all the above, and taking your spouse there may be the very thing you both need to turn all that noise off. Find a room you don’t use much, an oversize closet will do, and furnish the space with utter simplicity–candles, soft lighting, softer music, maybe a water source like an indoor fountain. Go there after work, or after the kids are in bed, and just enjoy each other.

3) Speaking of kids, the little darlings are another major source of distraction, and they often come between the two of you. They won’t appreciate it if you two treat each other harshly, or allow a tense atmosphere to persist. So for everyone’s good, make a point of spending time alone, and keep the kids at arms length. Not easy, but necessary.

4) Be openly affectionate. This, too, is a choice, and one that seems fraught with difficulty for a lot of people. Men too often equate tactile overtures–even something as simple as a brush against an arm–as a sign that sex is the intent. Women on the other hand would prefer just the affectionate hug or embrace, without expectation of anything more. The dilemma grows as men expect too much and pursue sex, then their spouses withhold even the simple touch, so men can eventually get their only tactile feedback in sex, and the problem grows. Women need to be more open about their needs, and men need to learn to listen better, especially to what their mates are not saying. Often, affection is the need, not sex.

5) Laugh more often. Even if you have to go to the joke of the day on the internet to find a real dog of a joke, do it every day, or find some reason to make your mate smile.

6) Whisper. Nothing gets someone’s attention like a soft, sexy whisper. If all you want is attention, fine. See number 4.

7) Take care of yourself. No kidding, carrying too much weight is not only unhealthy, it’s likely unattractive to your mate. Too many people disregard their physical appearance once they’re married. This may be the biggest cause of disenchantment and divorce. If your love life has suffered in the past few years, your weight may be the reason. We did say simple steps, and losing weight isn’t simple. But it may be the best thing you can do for your relationship.

8) Meet for lunch. This ritual seems to have gone away. Too bad. There’s nothing more enjoyable than getting together in the middle of the day to reconnect. There’s another benefit to this, too. Being seen together in public gets noticed. That’s a good thing.

9) The old fashioned total body rubdown is hard to beat. Soft music, warm lotion, long, lingering massage can be the one thing your mate has needed for a long time. Try it tonight.

10) Sex. Okay, our romantic notions are never complete without physical contact in the bedroom. Here’s an idea, though. Never be afraid to experiment. Read a book. Go on line and look for something new. Be careful not to invite viral dangers into your computer. Stick to tasteful, mature sites that cater to adults. They’re out there, just tough to find. Or make it up yourself. They say the brain is the sexiest organ there is. It could be that the key to great romance is taking more time than you ever thought you would.

Your marriage is the most important aspect of your life. Having real affection for each other pays off in so many ways it’s hard to list them all. You feel better, your friends notice and they feel better, your kids are happier, you’ll be healthier, you’ll enjoy each other more and perhaps the best part of all is, that people will wonder what you’ve been up to.
Listening to music while you are meditating – not a good idea. … Anything you do with the thought that you are meditating is meditating. There are many ways to meditate. Personally, I find music to be distracting, but paying attention to sounds in your environment is part of insight meditation.

sleep meditation Work? Life? Balance? How To Create Ideal Work/Life Balance in a 24/7 World

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The viability of work-life balance is a hotly-debated, contentious topic. I’ve read recent articles suggesting that it’s good to merge your working and personal life and that its positive that some companies make it easy to work all day and often at night by providing dry-cleaning services and free food and drink (I strongly disagree by the way)! Or another article complaining that working mothers are unfair on their single colleagues because they leave early and expect them to do an unfair share of work.

When you work at home, where (and when) do you draw the lines between work and home? And how do you do that? If you work in an office, what time do you leave, and do you then continue working later at home?

Where work begins and ends has never been more important to resolve

Do you find yourself spending Sunday evening checking your work emails and getting ready for Monday morning?

On Thursday at 8 pm do you find yourself desperately trying to finish an urgent report instead of having dinner with your partner or going to the gym? When you’re on the school run, are you multitasking with your mobile? Heaven forbid, are you taking work calls by the pool during your summer holiday?

Uh oh! What about your work life balance?

With boundaries between your work and your life so blurred at the moment, work time encroaching on you time like a hungry amoeba, work-life balance may seem like a quaint, outdated concept. Is it realistic or even possible? If so what does it mean and how do you get it?!

Here are 10 tips to help you achieve the nirvana-like state of mutually inspiring work life balance. And yes it IS possible, as I know from 12 plus years coaching high-performers to achieve more while having & enjoying a life!

1) You need to love your work (or be able to adjust it or your approach to it so that you DO love it). Or change jobs or even career if not. Fundamentally, for work life balance to be possible, your work needs to reflect your values and strengths, to be harmonious with your vision and purpose. If your work works with your values, there can be a connected flow between your work and your life with mutually energising momentum. But if you don’t love your work now, it’s impossible to create great work/life balance as your work and life are intrinsically incompatible and opposed: it is literally your work or your life. You’re checking yourself out when you check yourself in.

2) Get clear on what your values, strengths, passions are, so that you can make sure your work aligns with them. Change your job, your career, or start your own business if it doesn’t. Creating a clear, inspiring personal vision and purpose is powerful, not just effective, but even transformative.

3) Take time for your life… Assuming you do fundamentally love your career and your job (you may love one but not the other of course), you still need to take time for your life in order to feel balanced and happy. All too often people make the mistake of trying to fit their personal life around what is left of their time and energy after they finish work. Guess what? They are then exhausted and out of time and their personal life gets put on hold. Which isn’t sustainable-you will get squeezed out and ultimately burnt out. Your relationships will get impoverished, your health will suffer, you will be miserable… So make crucial appointments with yourself or they won’t happen – i.e. I know a news anchor who works out 4-5 days a week at 5.30 am. As challenging as it is to get out of bed so early, especially in winter, she finds that her new energy reserves make every other challenge seem like a positive opportunity she can sail through successfully. Scheduling regular date nights, gym times, meditation times, spa appointments etc is absolutely key. Equally, set boundaries for your work, around travel, not working evenings or weekends etc. The resulting balance will actually make you more successful as well as happier.

4) Accept sometimes balance will tilt one way or another because of unusual circumstances, but have that be an exception for a predetermined short period of time. You might decide to take an extended holiday for a month. Fab! You might have an urgent project that will have you working all hours for 2 weeks. OK! But don’t say, for example, that you will knock yourself out for a year at work in order to achieve something. You won’t get that year of your life back, and you’re setting dangerous precedents and habits that will compromise your quality of life.

5) Practice exceptional self-care. Because you’re worth it and it will allow you to feel your best and deliver! That means physical self-care-eating lots of fruit and vegetables, not just sandwiches, drinking lots of water and not so much coffee, and getting brilliantly physically fit by creating the discipline to exercise regularly. And don’t forget care of the soul too, just as important, whatever that means to you.

6) Be mindful. Be present. Don’t multi-task. Being present rather than distracted makes you centred and grounded and also creates an impression of gravitas and presence. Multitasking with young children is particularly dangerous. A client told me recently that her young daughter threw something heavy at her in sheer rage when she was distracted from their play date by a business call.

7) Achieve more success through balance… Far from compromising your work effectiveness, individuals who protect their energy by looking after themselves and maintaining strong boundaries, are able to demonstrate more creativity, big-picture thinking, better empathy and communication skills, all qualities that are essential for long-term success. With my own executive coaching clients, I consistently see evidence that better work-life balance correlates with professional achievement and promotion – without exception, in fact.

8) Happiness..If you have better work-life balance, you are likelier to enjoy a more rewarding, inspiring, and restorative personal life, be happier, and have higher self-esteem. If you look after yourself, you give yourself the message that you matter and are worth taking care of.

9) Resilience… Poor work-life balance will lead to getting stressed out, exhausted, depleted, and ultimately burnt out. It’s not sustainable. It’s therefore in companies’ interests too to make sure that their driven high-achievers aren’t overdoing it.

10) Career leverage… Balance allows big-picture clarity about your career vision, the space and mental energy to nurture your professional networks, keep your head above water, understand the bigger trends in your industry, connect with head-hunters, get invited to speak and raise your profile, be front of mind for exciting new job opportunities. Whereas being exhausted by over-working and under-living just gets you stuck and keeps you stuck.

Let me reassure you that your fulfilling work can inspire (and be a part of) your happy personal life, and your happy life can inspire your successful work. I have many former and current coaching clients who have created exactly this kind of mutually reinforcing energising balance. So what’s the secret?

As the poet E.E. Cummings says, “There’s a hell of a good universe out there, let’s go!”.

One of my favourite quotes about the beauty of balance is from poet W.B. Yeats – Among School Children:

Labour is blossoming or dancing where

The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.

Nor beauty born out of its own despair,

Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.

O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,

Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

To dance, you need balance!
Listening to music while you are meditating – not a good idea. … Anything you do with the thought that you are meditating is meditating. There are many ways to meditate. Personally, I find music to be distracting, but paying attention to sounds in your environment is part of insight meditation.

meditation music Healing Depression With Sound

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Meditation music is music performed to aid in the practice of meditation. It can have a specific religious content, but also more recently has been associated with modern composers who use meditation techniques in their process of composition, or who compose such music with no particular religious group as a focus.

how to do meditation | meditation podcast
Clinical depression with its symptoms of despair, guilt, exhaustion, pain and anxiety is a debilitating condition. Severe sufferers struggle with a reason for living and some attempt suicide. Rising rates of teen suicide raises the alarm that depression is out of control and growing rapidly. It has been predicted by the World Health Organisation that by 2020 depression will be a greater threat to human health than heart disease or cancer.

Socially, this can be seen as a reaction to the current state of the world, uncertainty or pressure to perform. At a biochemical level it can be seen as an environmental and chemical crisis, causing an imbalance in brain chemistry. The effectiveness of antidepressant drugs indicates that neurochemistry is a major causal factor.

Chemistry can be changed through psychological attitude, by drug treatment, or by a gentle vibrational stimulation, to bring about balance, such as that delivered in sound therapy.

The Bridge of Sound

Can a balance in the brain be achieved naturally through sound? The brain of a depressed person is much less active than normal and this can be seen on an MRI. There is less processing than there needs to be for healthy functioning.

This would account for the feelings of lethargy, slowness and lack of excitement a depressed person feels. The part of the cortex associated with conscious emotion is over active, while the part concerned with generating action is under active. This results in the depressed person feeling a lack of motivation or inspiration to do anything, while being swamped with emotion.

It is an interesting fact that when asked to think of something sad, women generate more activity in their emotional brains than men do. This increased power of emotional imagination may make women more easily prone to depression than men.

Dopamine, an essential neurotransmitter is necessary for physical motivation and the ability to act. A lack of dopamine is seen in Parkinson’s patients and accounts for their tremor and their inability to generate the desired physical activities. Sound Therapy has been found to motivate people into more activity, and has assisted people with both depression and Parkinson’s , so it is possible that it helps to stimulate dopamine production. Excess dopamine on the other hand is found in hallucinogenic cases and has been implicated in Schizophrenia. Hallucinogenic drugs are thought to work by stimulating the dopamine system. There are also reports of sound Therapy helping people with schizophrenia, so it may also help regulate excess levels of dopamine and keep the right balance in the brain.

Another very important neurotransmitter is Serotonin, responsible for feelings of happiness and well being. When we look at the effects of serotonin it looks like a list of reported sound therapy benefits. Listeners report an increase of good feeling, serenity and optimism. We also know that sound therapy affects sleep. A considerable number of people have reported a decrease in chronic pain and high blood pressure. Some have reported weight loss due to reduced appetite. All this implies that sound therapy may be improving the production or absorption of serotonin. It could therefore be considered as an alternative to Prozac, which acts by enhancing serotonin levels.

In his book Cultivating a Daily Meditation, The Dalai Lama has written:

In this modern age, Western Science has much knowledge about matter, but it seems very limited concerning consciousness. Without deep knowledge of consciousness the usefulness of even full knowledge of matter is questionable.

Could it be that sound brings us to a more aware state of ourselves by holding our attention? Richard Davidson and a team of researchers found for the first time, that a short program in “mindfulness meditation” produced lasting positive changes in both the brain and the function of the immune system. The findings confirmed the researchers’ assumption: the meditation group showed an increase of activation in the left side part of the frontal region. This suggests that the meditation itself produced more activity in this region of the brain. This activity is associated with lower anxiety and a more positive emotional state.

The right brain is typically more involved with negative emotions and fearful, mournful or pessimistic feelings. People who experience severe left brain strokes often react as if they have undergone a tragedy, even if they suffer mild disabilities as a result. In contrast, those that have their right brain affected by a stroke sometimes seem unaffected emotionally and remain cheerful despite serious disabling effects. Sound therapy may be achieving the same effect increasing the dominance of left brain function and taking precedence over the parts linked to negative emotions.

The Future of Sound Therapy?

Music is a miniature of the harmony of the whole universe, for the harmony of the universe is life itself, and man, being a miniature of the universe, shows harmonious and inharmonious chords in his pulsation, in the beat of his heart, in his vibration, rhythm and tone. His health or illness, his joy or discomfort, all show the music or lack of music in his life. Azrat Inayat Khan, Mysticism of Sound and Music, 1996.

People accept the calming or stimulating effects of sound and it has been absorbed in our psyche. Could we make the leap of imagining that carefully directed tones, used like lasers, forming deep contact with the patient could be used as preparation for medical treatment, surgical operations, and fine tuning or balancing of the total organism – physically, emotionally and mentally? All that the patient would need to do is simply listen.
Listening to music while you are meditating – not a good idea. … Anything you do with the thought that you are meditating is meditating. There are many ways to meditate. Personally, I find music to be distracting, but paying attention to sounds in your environment is part of insight meditation.

Brainwave Entrainment How To Create A Goal Traffic Light

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Goal accomplishment would be much simpler if we had internal signals that would indicate green when it was time to go, yellow when it was appropriate to wait, and red when we should hit the brakes. This would remove confusion and doubt, and prevent us from wasting time and money.

Since you were not designed with this decision-making feature, you have to find strategies that can help you to decipher the results that you experience when you start working on your goals. Here’s how you can create a ‘traffic light’ for your goals that will indicate the right steps you need to take.

Seek out relevant information

To make a decision, you must obtain all the details you need to create an appropriate plan of action. Don’t try to pursue your goal without arming yourself with critical information that will let you know if you should proceed or stop.

For example, if you want to buy your own home, you need to know your desired property value and location, how much deposit is required, and the income you need to acquire a mortgage. If you want to pursue a higher education, you need to seek career areas that are in demand, find out eligibility requirements, determine the tuition cost, and ascertain how you will finance your education within your budget.

It is extremely important to do your due diligence especially if you want to start your own business. Before you embark on any enterprise, you need to understand your technical and business capabilities and research the market opportunity before deciding if this is a viable option for you.

Getting information will allow you to assess your ability to move ahead with your goal and realise all the shortcomings that need to be addressed. The process will also help you decide if you are willing to do all the hard work that is required to realise your goal, or if you should just let it go.

Listen to wise instruction

When you have conceptualised a plan, it usually makes perfect sense to you. However, it’s critical to get other opinions about your ideas, especially if your plan will require money. Look for experts in the field you are pursuing and ask them to assess your ideas before you make firm decisions.

Once you have found someone who is qualified to advise you on your quest, make certain that you provide all pertinent information that can help this person to guide you. Listen carefully to the questions you may be asked and don’t get defensive if your idea receives constructive criticism.

Sometimes persons seek advice only to get an affirmation that they are on the right path. As such, they will selectively disregard any suggestions that may go against what they have already decided to do. They believe that the advisors didn’t really understand their goal, so their counsel is ignored.

While your mentors may be more experienced, their opinions are not infallible, so get other viewpoints if you are uncertain about their advice. Where weaknesses or flaws in your ideas have been revealed, use their cautionary words to reevaluate your objectives and improve your plans.

Follow your instinct or inspiration

There are times when a goal may be so unconventional that it defies logical reasoning and seems impossible to be accomplished. These ideas are often derived from a novel theory or some divine inspiration, and the persons who conceive them are viewed as mavericks or eccentric dreamers.

Magellan wanted to sail around the Earth; the Wright brothers wanted to travel in a flying machine; Roger Bannister wanted to break the four-minute mile barrier. While your goal may not be as earth-shaking, you may have been gifted with a brainwave that could change your community or country.

Your idea may be in the maverick category if you get responses such as “It won’t work because it’s never been done like this before,” or “We don’t have the capacity to do this.” If you have conceived a revolutionary idea, be prepared to go all-out and make major sacrifices to realise your goal.

You will need to have a strong motivating force that compels you to win, and a fierce determination to press through despite the inevitable obstacles and trials. Read stories of trailblazers and find other like-minded goal seekers who can help to encourage you to accomplish your big dream.
Brainwave entrainment is a method to stimulate the brain into entering a specific state by using a pulsing sound, light, or electromagnetic field. The pulses elicit the brain? ?requency following?response, encouraging the brainwaves to align to the frequency of a given beat.

This ?requency following?response of brainwave entrainment can be seen in action with those prone to epilepsy. If a strobe flashes at their seizure frequency, the brain will ?ntrain?to the flashing light, resulting in a seizure.

On the positive side, this same mechanism is commonly used to induce many brainwave states; such as a trance, enhanced focus, relaxation, meditation or sleep induction. The brainwave entrainment effectively pushes the entire brain into a certain state.

Brainwave entrainment works for almost everyone. It is a great way to lead your mind into states that you might usually have difficulty reaching, allowing you to experience what those states feel like.

THE HYPE
There is a lot of marketing hype around brainwave entrainment. It is sold with promises of increasing IQ, promoting weight loss, ?ind-tripping? enhancing creativity, concentration, inducing spiritual states and more.

While these claims are not entirely true, they are not altogether false either. In practice, the claims are based on an overly-simplistic view of how the brain and the brainwaves function.
THE RUB
People are very seldom deficient in a certain brainwave type in all areas of their brain. Usually the distribution is much spottier, with an excess in one area and a deficiency in another.

We are all different, especially when it comes to the distribution of our brainwaves. Boosting a certain brainwave state may be beneficial for one person, and emotionally uncomfortable for another. Without knowing each person? starting position, entrainment can be rather ?it and miss?

If brainwave entrainment leaves you with unwanted side-effects (see below) or discomfort, you?e probably encouraging a range of brainwaves that are already excessive in some area of your brain. The way around this is to get a brain map to see what your brain? strengths and weaknesses are, and see what (if any) brainwaves could use some encouragement.

meditation music Cooking Meditation – The Contemplation of Cooking

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Meditation music is music performed to aid in the practice of meditation. It can have a specific religious content, but also more recently has been associated with modern composers who use meditation techniques in their process of composition, or who compose such music with no particular religious group as a focus.

isotones | deep sleep music
There is the housewife’s routine, the fast food factory, the restaurant drudgery, industrialised catering, ridiculous 3-star chefs and then there is Cooking Meditation. This may end up being quite refined but starts off with the humble garden barbecue; food cooked on the spot and amidst everybody and everything, simple and delicious. It’s the gathering around the hearth of bygone times for warmth, food and companionship. Has anything changed?

To cook means to expose raw ingredients to heat with the help of cooking utensils and thus turning them into edible food. You are all in one

dreamer creator chief chef magician alchemist
technician mechanic chemist biologist
handyman and dishwasher.

There are a few simple ways to get the job done, and the market delights with foodstuff of different

textures types origins colours character

all available at no great expense. It’s no mystery, either. Everybody around you is using some or more of these with lesser or greater success, out of necessity or for no other reason than indulging in pleasure.

As an introduction for you to get started with ease I shall provide a simple guide to tools and techniques, a general description of ingredients and some ideas of how, when and in what combination you might use these. Be patient, it’s all here.

‘Tasty and healthy, light and fresh, easy and fun’ should be challenge and motivation enough for you to give it a try. And when ‘the spirit catches you’ resulting in your

brain, mind, soul and heart nose, ears and eyes
wrists and fingertips palate and tongue

eventually becoming ONE with the products in your hands, you have reached a very advanced state of contemplation. Total concentration – the mind is flying, soaring. Creation! Others may meditate cramping their muscles; your meditation is cooking, simple and fun.

Actually the whole process starts with a flash of inspiration out of nowhere, an article, a photo or whatever. You get onto your bike and head for the Evening Market. The seeds in your mind are growing and by the time you get there they start bearing fruit. These keep ripening while you are wandering about, putting together and finally purchasing all that is needed to make your inspiration come true. Head home for the final, crucial, cataclysmic act of creation. It is an experience that totally cleanses you of what may worry you leading to pure pleasure, salvation and exaltation.

There goes the doorbell! My friends with their ever more refined taste buds are here. The table is set, the second part of the evening is about to begin, full of knowledge and fun.

For the desk bound office worker, from clerk to manager, CEO to politician, it offers the challenge and satisfaction of making full use of the magic of one’s hands interacting with the brain and the senses.

The Sophistication of Simplicity

What really is sophisticated cooking other than to work with the least number of ingredients to create culinary art. This is more likely to happen in a jungle in Laos or Lao village hut than a 3-star kitchen in France, or Bangkok for that matter.

Sophistication is Perfection in Simplicity

That’s art; read Wilhelm Busch or Albert French, listen to Mozart or Santana, look at Vincent Van Gogh. It is agonising hard work to make something appear with such magic ease to convince, captivate, mesmerise, fascinate and last as unique.

Put my recipes to the test. How few ingredients they are made of. Another thing, there is no space in my kitchen for oven or microwave.

Today architecture and interior design are a battleground of opulence versus elegance, new-rich show-offs and old-moneyed discretion. Guess what reigns supreme? The same in cooking!

Keep things simple, use home grown produce. If you do not know to appreciate the local stuff and seem to think that you must have imports to tart up your menu to impress and compete, you have already lost before even having started. Convince me with your love and ingenuity, not fanciful names from faraway countries.

The creation of a meal, the way it is produced and consumed, define a civilisation. Accordingly the infamous starred Michelin restaurants rank rock bottom while the Lao farmer’s evening meal comes out on top of the list.

Cook me a simple, honest to Buddha tom som pa, like Bangon’s at the Kingfisher Ecolodge in Champasak, and I shall taste whether you really know how and care to cook!

The Quantification of Quality

With regard to the debate about Quantity Measurements versus Intuition, and the very essence of this guide book, it would certainly have been smarter in terms of its marketability if I had indicated measurements for each and every item.

Weights, more often than not, are studiously converted from some weird English or American unit into very precise 436 grams. Read the food pages of any newspaper or magazine if you don’t believe that such nonsense actually exists and is taken seriously to boot.

In reality, whose appetite are we talking about? Which norms would honestly apply from one person to the other, my fingertips to my wife’s, teaspoon size in this country to the one an ocean across?

We are talking here about cooking the Asian way. There is neither room nor need for silly measurements!

This book is an extension of my design art. Art is not quantifiable. It can neither be measured by the size of a canvas and litres of paint, the number of musical notes in a symphony, cubic and square meters of concrete… nor in grams, fingertips and teaspoons.

This is all about experimenting and gaining confidence in due course. Trust yourself and get started; that’s what it takes, no more, no less!
Listening to music while you are meditating – not a good idea. … Anything you do with the thought that you are meditating is meditating. There are many ways to meditate. Personally, I find music to be distracting, but paying attention to sounds in your environment is part of insight meditation.

Brainwave Entrainment What Are Binaural Beats & How Do They Work?

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Brainwave entrainment is a method to stimulate the brain into entering a specific state by using a pulsing sound, light, or electromagnetic field. The pulses elicit the brain’s ‘frequency following’ response, encouraging the brainwaves to align to the frequency of a given beat.
visualization meditation | play meditation music
You maybe thinking that Binaural Beats are just another “new age” but if you read this article you will soon learn that this is not the case. Binaural Beats have been researched for almost 170 years. During each day your brain will reach various frequency cycles. The varying frequencies will have varying effects on your conscious state. Using this information, it has been discovered that the brains receiving and operating frequency can be altered by using external stimuli such as pulsating lights or sound waves. They found that the brain will alter the frequency of the brainwaves it produces to try and match or copy the frequency of the stimuli. For example our brain will normally produce brainwaves at 4 cycles per second when we are asleep. If we look at a light flashing at 4 times per second our brainwaves will begin to match that frequency which can have the effect of sending us to sleep.

The only problem with using sound waves to alter consciousness is that the frequencies associated with relaxation are under 20Hz. Since the ear itself cannot hear frequencies this low, Binaural Beat Technology came about which uses the inner wiring of the brain to produce the frequency with perfect accuracy.

Binaural Beats work by broadcasting two separate frequencies in each ear. For example, if you wanted to tune your brain to a 7 Hz frequency, you could play 200 Hz in your right ear, and 207 Hz in your left ear. The brain will compensate for the difference between the two and produce a third tone that will be exactly 7 Hz. This will result in your brain frequency being lowered and tuned to the desired 7 Hz operating stage. This is also known as brainwave entrainment.

Case Study.

An article published in the Journal of Neurotherapy in 1999 by Thomas Budzynski Ph.D. Showed that 8 college students were able able to increase their GPA (grade point average) by using audio brainwave stimulation, more than this even after the brainwave entrainment was finished their GPA still continued to improve.

Monaural Beats & Isochronic Tones.

In recent years some improvements have been made to give two new variations on the standard technology. Monaural Beats is a technology that uses two tones of equal intensity. This results in a crisp and clean sound. Unlike Binaural Beats, Monaural beats are easier on your brain because there is no need to balance the tones and your mind does not need time to adjust, making the process of altering the frequency of your brainwaves much faster. The two tones combine to form one single tone before it reaches the brain, this single tone pulses on and off in a sign wave pattern, which is tuned specifically for the frequencies that produce the desired effect.

Isochronic Tones are the latest and most effective type of brainwave entrainment. These are similar to Monaural Beats but with one subtle difference, rather than creating a sign wave, the sound itself pulses on and off. This allows the brain to become tuned to the frequency even more quickly and the effects are more pronounced. This technology is proving to give the most profound effects of any type of brainwave entrainment.

How to get the most out of your Binaural Beats recording.

If you are using Binaural Beats then you must use earphones or they will not be effective. If you are using Monaural Beats or Isochronic Tones then earphones are not required. If you can only hear well in one ear then you should use Monaural Beats or Isochronic Tones. Finding somewhere that is quiet and where you will not be disturbed is important as any interruptions will make it harder for you to reach your desired state of consciousness. You should also try to relax and if you can let your mind go blank, as the internal chatter of your mind can slow the process down. Finally give it time, the effects are not instant and in most cases you will need to listen to the recording for at least 5 minutes, some minds may take longer, particularly if it is your first time using Binaural Beats.
Brainwave entrainment is a method to stimulate the brain into entering a specific state by using a pulsing sound, light, or electromagnetic field. The pulses elicit the brain? ?requency following?response, encouraging the brainwaves to align to the frequency of a given beat.